Ever since I heard of Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law—any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic—I've often found myself thinking of how magic would end up being studied in a post-scientific revolution civilization. I know a lot of fantasy authors don't like making their systems of magic explicit, because it inevitably makes it magic less magical (and not making it explicit is also incidentally in line with Tolkien's thoughts on how magic should work: internally logically consistent the way logic in fairy tales and dreams are internally consistent, no matter how weird.)

I think Kevin Drum almost gets—but ultimately misses—the point in his brief analysis of an article about Stuff White People Like, a blog that collates different cultural characteristics applicable to the young urban professional white person. What is novel about it is not that it targets a particular demographic that has been depicted by Hollywood as Normal™, but that it explicitly associates this culture with race.

I can’t seem to write myself out of a paper bag.

Another confession: I have serious problems. But some of you already knew that. Why I don’t tell people who are close to me, and yet I’m OK with telling the entire Internet, who knows?

Well, I am escaping, really. I know this is true because the treacly, molasses-like, sappy feelings in my heart are still stirring. I cannot put her out of my mind (I do not want to put her out of my mind) and I marvel at AB's fortitude, given that he has much more going for him… (what I would give for a sligh fraction of such hope) and still he is sure, he will not turn back on his path. I, with much less hope, am willing, still unsure why I must walk this road, this road likely to lead to my damnation, if I cannot hold it in.